


Take from my hand, put in your hands, the fruit of all my grief

by eatsshootsleaves



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 14:32:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4352528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eatsshootsleaves/pseuds/eatsshootsleaves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after the US drops the A-bombs on Japan the War has not ended, instead it's escalated into something far worse. Peggy is left protecting a group of refugees from New York.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take from my hand, put in your hands, the fruit of all my grief

**Author's Note:**

> All errors are my own.  
> Title from Don’t Wanna Fight by Alabama Shakes
> 
> “Era todavía demasiado joven para saber que la memoria del corazón elimina los malos recuerdos y magnifica los buenos, y que gracias a ese artificio logramos sobrellevar el pasado.”  
> El amor en los tiempos del cólera – Gabriel García Márquez
> 
> (“He was still too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past.”)  
> Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez

It turns out Italians have a wicked sense of humor. It was something Angie had told her the night all the radios from New York went dead. Howard had left that morning to round up “just one more group” to evacuate. Now there was no response from the plane’s CB radio.

Their entire makeshift compound fell silent when word got out that the radios had gone. It was the first sign, they had learned from experiencing the fall of D.C., that the city was likely gone.

New York was the last bastion of hope for many. American defenses had been just barely staving off a nuclear attack on the world’s largest city for the past nine months. Other east coast cities had fallen like dominoes around it.

Los Angeles had been first. A bitter retaliation by the Axis powers for Nagasaki and Hiroshima. 

How the entire Allied intelligence community had missed the Nazi nuclear program was a question that would haunt Peggy for the rest of her days.

\---

The room was silent as static from the radio filled the air. Nobody moved. Peggy could feel Angie trying to catch her eye, but she would splinter into a thousand pieces if she looked at the other woman right now. So it was Angie that moved, abruptly standing from where she had previously been sewing drapes together to make a blanket, and slammed a hand down on the radio’s power button effectively silencing it.

Peggy still couldn’t look at her, but she imagined the woman had a defiant look in here eye…   
Howard… She should’ve been the one to fly this round, not him… It had been her turn, and the world desperately needs his genius… Not Howard…

She thinks its Angie’s uncle who speaks up from the corner of the room; although in the Martinelli family relations could seemingly be formed if you could craft a decent ravioli. So it was hard to say.

His slightly accented voice cut easily through the silent room. “Well at least we won’t have to hear any more about how them Yankees keep losing all their damn games…”

Peggy barks out a laugh and she’s not the only one. It’s enough to crack the tension and once the silence is broken the tears come. New York is gone, what is left? 

\---

Peggy gets up silently and exits the compound, leaving a mess of grieving bodies attempting to comfort one another. She feels a set of eyes on her back but doesn’t turn, preferring, as always, to grieve alone.

She walks until she is entirely lost in the woods, but her numbness keeps the fear at bay. Out here she is not a leader, not a symbol of strength and hope for hundreds of stranded refugees.

Angie finds her hours later when the sun is setting curled up under a tree with a handful of fresh tears still falling. She doesn’t try and talk to Peggy, but after a few moments of prodding with no response from the British woman, she forcibly grabs Peggy under her arms and yanks her to her feet. 

Peggy is still numb, after hours in the chilly Acadian forest, both figuratively and literally. But she feels Angie’s hands on her cheeks as she tilts her head up to look in the other woman’s blue eyes.

It’s only then that she talks. Angie’s always been a talker and Peggy will always listen no matter how detached from her body she may be.

“I know he was on his was there today and I know what that might mean.” Angie takes a steadying breath at the thought. “And I know you’re tired Pegs. God knows we all are. So I promise you that you can give up tomorrow.” 

This causes a little twinge in Peggy’s eyebrow and Angie knows she’s getting through. She returns it with a smile that breaks the tear tracks on her own face.

“Or you can give up the day after that. But you don’t get to quit today. I need you today. The rest of the world needs you today. So tomorrow you tell this damned world to piss right off, but tonight you’re coming back to camp with me.”

She’s got a fire in her eyes that Peggy has taken so much strength from over the last year. Angie is angry and frustrated and so much stronger than anyone has the right to be in this chaos. Peggy thinks, not for the first time, that she could kiss her. 

The thought makes her nostalgic for a time when notions like these might be something scandalous and noteworthy. Now they’re just filed away beneath a thousand more pressing grievances. 

They don’t kiss, but Angie has her hand and is dragging her back through the forest towards the camp. It’s only then that Peggy thinks to ask, “how did you find me out here?”

It makes Angie laugh, a real and true laugh that casts a sliver of light in an otherwise pitch black day. “English, you in the forest… To say you’re a bull in a china shop doesn’t do it justice.”

Peggy has regained enough sense of herself back to look outraged. This only makes Angie laugh more. 

“Plus you know Uncle Marco’s been teaching me to track. Orienteering and all that jazz. He’s a real boy scout that one. Except with women, of course, then he’s disgusting…”

This makes Peggy laugh, and gives her the resolve to straighten her shoulders as they walk back through the brush fence that borders camp.

Plans are already forming in her head. A meeting with everyone in the town hall area after dinner time. Sympathetic words and slivers of hope she’ll deliver to the crowd. Peggy’s mind is alive again and she feels Angie squeeze her hand and release it as she marches off towards their vegetable garden where the elder Mrs. Martinelli is sure to be found.

Peggy watches her leave and gives herself a moment of indulgent thought amongst the plans swirling in her head… She might love Angie; in fact, she’s quite sure of it, in some form or other. And Angie might love her back too. Or she might be aware that Peggy needs her to get through days like today and their fledgling community needs an intact Peggy to keep any semblance of order.

The idea that Angie could be supporting her for such a pragmatic reason is disheartening, but before she can dwell on it, her attention is grabbed by a frantic elderly woman asking about New York with a tale of two sons left behind. So Peggy’s mind does what it does best and focuses on the problem at hand.

\---

Hours later Peggy finds herself staring blankly at the side of the tent that now comprises most of her home aware that sleep will not come to her this night. It’s in the shadow of what might be the worst day of her life to date that she gets an answer to the conundrum that is Angie.

The door flap in her tent rustles, and though Peggy’s hand automatically wraps around the pistol under her mattress, she already knows who it is. It’s not the first time Angie’s stayed in Peggy’s bed, often taking refuge from the merciless snoring of the tent that she shares with six of her family members. But it is the first time she slides into bed and immediately wraps herself around Peggy’s body. Peggy’s awoken to find the both of them intertwined a few times before, but her English austerity has always won out and she’s ended up extracting herself before getting to enjoy the comfort of having someone else so close.

As her arms find their way around Peggy’s waist Angie burrows her nose into the base of the other woman’s neck. It makes Peggy shiver and only marginally from the cold.

“You are always freezing by the time you get here, why don’t you just wear a coat?” 

“You know I hate rooting around that tent in the dark. Would you wanna risk waking up my ma at three am?”   
Peggy actually shivers at that thought.

“Besides, I’m not that cold… see!” She picks this moment to place the ice blocks she calls feet against Peggy’s calves and makes the reserved Brit squeal and flip around to squirm away from the offending body parts.

“You are such a brat, you know that!?” Peggy’s muted scolding holds no anger.

“Yeah, but you love me anyways.”

They’re facing each other across the flimsy single mattress. Before Peggy can make up a response Angie leans forward, closes her eyes and rests her forehead against Peggy’s.

Peggy can feel her heart beating as Angie lets out a sigh that floats across her lips and she thinks vaguely that it’s nice to feel adrenaline for something other than mortal fear again.

Angie moves a hand to Peggy’s cheek but keeps her eyes closed. “I need you again tomorrow, ok English?”

“Ok.”

“And probably the day after that too.”

“Alright.”

“I know I promised that you could quit and I’m goin’ back on that, but I’m gonna need you for a lot more than today, ok?”

Angie pulls her head back a bit when Peggy doesn’t answer right away. 

“You need me Angie, or the world needs me?” Peggy asks, but she’s already got her answer when she looks up into Angie’s blue eyes.

In the end it’s Angie who kisses her, of course. She really is the strong one.


End file.
